


So You Have A Hermit Cousin, Now What?

by J_Ace_Flicker



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Bartman go die challenge, Death of the Author, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Ace_Flicker/pseuds/J_Ace_Flicker
Summary: Flynn and Danny interactions
Relationships: Flynn Walker & Danny Phantom, Flynn Walker & Narrator
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is https://lightfulcomics.tumblr.com/  
> Feel free to ask me questions, request fics, etc there.

Now, young Fenton, you seemed to have gotten yourself into quite the pickle! But I believe I have  _ just _ the solution for you!

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” The white haired ghost-boy shouted from his upside-down, tied up position.

“They call themselves  _ The One Who Speaks It Into Existence, _ the pretentious thing. We all call them  _ Narrator  _ instead. Easier to say.”

Young Flynn Walker, a boy lost to the mortal realms and forced to wander  _ Phantasmagoria, _ or, as it is more colloquially known, The Ghost Zone. You speak so familiarly with a boy you barely know. Could it be a part of you sense the bond shared, hidden?

“Walker!? Like the  _ Walker the Warden? _ ”

“Not exactly.”

And yet,  _ exactly. _

Phantom let out a scream. Oh, you’ve forgotten your Echoic, your so-called Ghostly Wail, haven’t you? “Ugh! I don’t know if I can trust anyone named Walker, but I trust the person who tied me up even less!”

Now, now, youngling, fledgling,  _ He Who Grows Into His Stars--  _ you are a Walker, too, you know.

“WHAT!” the boy began thrashing, desperately trying to escape.

“You’ll only hurt yourself. Just let them talk at you for a bit and then they’ll let us go.” In direct contrast to Phantom’s flailing, Flynn,  _ The Planes Walker, The Living Who Knows Only Death, _ was slumped into the chair he was tied to, resigned. Don’t worry, young Flynn, this Knowledge Keeper will try to make this quick-- they are, after all, familiar with the fickle fancy of teenage boys.

Phantom’s flailing died down to a tired squirm. “Do I really have to be tied up for this?”

I know that Flynn is as good as his word, but you are  _ Uncertainty Unfurling, Timelines in Flux in Shift in Retrograde, The Ever-Change.  _ Will you promise to stay and listen, can I trust your word?

“I’m no liar, not even to freaks who get their jollies off at tying up  _ kids _ . I’ll listen to what you have to say if you let us go! Though I am  _ not _ promising to take what you say to heart. I’m no liar, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll tell the  **_truth_ ** .” At his final word, he bared his teeth, blue slipped out from his mouth, and his voice became distorted. Ah, to watch a Halfa come into his own  _ (to watch a King before he is even a Prince) _ ! 

Very well then. Bippity-boppity-boo! The ropes on Flynn’s chair loosened and slumped to the ground; the young Walker remained sitting. Phantom became encased in an orange glow that slowly turned him right-side-up, the ropes gradually untwining.

“Well?” The impatient child jutted his jaw, grit his teeth, crossed his arms, tapped his feet. “I’m waiting. And  _ hey! _ I am not impatient! You can’t try to guilt me on my  _ manners _ when you. Kidnapped. Me!” The boy stomped his foot, his fists now held rigidly at his sides, defiantly glaring up into the void my voice slips out from.

“He’s got a point, Narrator. Stop with the hissy fit and get on with it.” The impertinent (lovely) child reached to his side and tiredly hefted up his makeshift spear. The ectoranium shimmered with anticipatory greens as he gestured with it. “I don’t wanna use this on you, but I  _ will _ .” I am stunned at his audacity. Pleased that I taught him so well. Such a smart child, very well then.

“ _ Ren _ ,” Flynn whines.

I am certain Danny here would love it if I showed him your baby pictures after I tell you both why he’s here.

Flynn flustered, turning red. “What?”

Flynn Walker, I would like to introduce you to your cousin, Danny Fenton. Or Phantom, as he goes by now.

Both boys paled, “WHAT!?”

Ah, I could see the resemblance already.

I settled myself and let their questions wash over me, gladly answering what I could.

_ (These boys were destined for loneliness, but they were born for rebellion, to defy the Fates themselves. They were destined for loneliness, but together, maybe they stood a chance.) _


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you know what it’s like to be stolen, Danny?” the teen with reddish-brown hair asked, brown eyes onyx in the dimly lit room.

“Dude, you’ve been holed up in your room for _days_. I-I’m getting worried.” Danny was in his ghost form, his layered cape wrapped around him. He cast shadows where he walked, flickering images of things that could have been and were and will never be dancing towards the hunched form of Flynn Walker. Danny sat down on Flynn’s bed, noting the creaking of the rusted springs and the worn, tattered blankets piled atop the yellowing mattress. “Are you okay, Flynn?”

Flynn looked blankly at his hands, cupped and holding nothing. “Our time together just slips away like sand between my fingers.”

Danny laughed awkwardly and tried to defuse the tension in the room the only way he knew how: badly timed humor. “I guess. I mean, you throw both in my face whenever we meet.”

A muffled voice called out from the inner pocket at the top of Danny’s robe, “Well, _I_ certainly haven’t heard of any _time_ being thrown in any faces! What shenanigans have you two been keeping secret from me?”

Danny immediately let out a sheepish chuckle and rubbed the back of his head, but Flynn’s back went ramrod straight and he gaped like a fish, clutching his dirty cloak to his chest. “You brought _Narrator_ here? Are you crazy! The gem they’re tied to is super fragile, Danny!”

“Said the boy petulantly.”

“Hey, that’s not fair now, Ren.” 

“Whined the teenager who has been worrying his poor Renny for weeks now!”

Flynn deflated. “I’m sorry, Renny.” He put his face in his hands.

There was a pause before the Narrator began again, “The boy’s Ren is sorry, too, but they simply do not know what to do. And so they turn to the son’s cousin, newly found but tightly knit, and ask that he provide the comfort they cannot.”

Danny rolled his eyes with a fond smile, “You don’t have to guilt me into showing my cousin a little love. Who do you take me for, Vlad?” Saying this, he strong-armed his cousin into a hug, forcing his head to rest on his shoulder. “Comforted, yet?”

“Shut up, idiot.” Flynn weakly smacked Danny’s shoulder, but made no move to get up and, in fact, sank deeper into the embrace. 

“What’s been wrong?”

He sighed. “I love ‘em all, Danny, so much. But ghosts... they don’t really change.”

Danny frowned and resisted the temptation to pull back, because Flynn was clinging to him. “What do you mean?”

“They’re people and they’re good and bad as anyone else, but... I was friends with kid ghosts, but they don’t grow up? They don’t get older and, if they do, they usually just are an adult one day. They all have their little bubbles and they rarely leave them. But me? I grow up. I-I- My voice started to crack during puberty and I went through a million different interests growing up and ghosts are capable of changing but _not like humans do_. I’m alone, Danny. But I don’t belong in the human world anymore. I... I don’t know what to do, dude.”

Danny clenched his fingers around the fabric on Flynn’s back, sucking in a breath through his teeth. He couldn’t think of anything to make this better. So he thought of who _could_. The First Friend, his most trusted keeper, his problem solver.

“You might not be able to _live_ in the human world, but who said you couldn’t visit?” Flynn jolted, pulling back to look Danny in the eyes but keeping a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, it’s time you met Jazz.”

Flynn perked up at this. “Did she like the poem I asked you to give her? It’s better in Arabic where it keeps the basīṭ meter, but I did my best and--”

“She’s gonna _love_ you, dude.”

“The Narrator believes that they have been forgotten, but forgives this transgression if they, too, get to meet the illustrious, elusive Jazz Fenton.”

Danny laughs, a hand in his cousin’s and another over his chest. Two friends who deserve to feel like they belong. 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he assured, whisking them off towards his parents’ portal.

Their time together might slip through Flynn’s fingers like sand, but Danny will always allow Flynn to grab another handful, to snatch just a little more time, if it means he won’t feel so lonely if only for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> "Ren" is a reference to the gender neutral term for parent-- paRENt.  
> The-Stove-Is-On-Fire owns my mortal soul and came up with the whole Flynn Walker thing. Find them on Tumblr!  
> I just want to add some background for Narrator. The way I see it is that Flynn stumbled into the ghost zone and fled until he found an enclave that seemed safe enough to rest in. Narrator isn't really physical, they are a completely intangible and translucent ghost, and the enclave was their Lair. So they started talking to Flynn and helped to raise him as best they could without a physical body. Narrator is close with ghosts like Ghost Writer, who is now kind of another parental figure to Flynn in my AU idea. Flynn has a collection of ghosts that despise him (such as, ironically enough, Walker, who hates disorder and rule breaking and humans are not supposed to be in the ghost zone!) and a variety of ghosts that he would consider friends. No one else has to adopt this idea at all, I just liked it is all.
> 
> Dunno if I will do anything else with this, tho.


End file.
